Mosfet 2n7000 (as in OCD)

[Guitarist]

I've bought a fistful of these and am having success adding them in diode mode (gate tied to drain). Some say they sound better, less boring in mosfet mode though. What leads do you work with this way and have you tried this?

I recently added them to effect's legs of an EQ pedal's footswitch and it works better running that at 12V as it seems to move into the diode "knee" zone then. Now the EQ has a bit more character

thanks.

[nickb]

That arrangement doesn't seem quite right to me. For the FET on the right, the FET is not really used. You end up with a diode in series with the body diode of that FET. The voltage drop of this will be lower than that of the left hand FET so that one will never do anything. In effect this is simply one diode in parallel with two opposed diodes in series.

I think that what is intended might be this:


Here is a variation that give you asymmetrical clipping ( you can vary R1/R2 to change the symmetry)



Or you can add one or more frequency dependant networks and have the symmetry vary with frequency. There are many permutations...

[Guitarist]

Hey thanks so much! I'm now imagining what 2 and 3 might sound like— you have?! I could almost see #3 covering some of what my rack Sonic Maximizer does now. Also find that one pair of diodes doesn't provide enough distortion so I often cascade pedals (going into a fairly clean tube power amp). I'm discovering Gary Moore's sound recently...

[nickb]

I saw Gary Moore play as a kid. It was a Led Zeppelin concert and Gary, on his own and aged about 18, was the supporting act. His talent was very evident even then.

The variation #3 might sound horrible - I've never tried. It's just an illustration of the general idea of making it vary with frequency.